Just months after Netflix broke and healed our hearts with When Life Gives You Tangerines, the streamer brings us a new generational tearjerker in You and Everything Else. The K-drama follows the complex trajectory of a lifelong friendship, formed in childhood and later challenged by resentment and jealousy over the span of 30 years. As Eun-jang (Kim Go-eun) and Sang-yeon (Park Ji-hyun) weave in and out of each other’s lives over the years, they discover the true depth of love and the fragile line between admiration and hatred.
To tell this emotional story, director Jo Young-min and writer Song Hye-jin recruited some of South Korea’s most lauded actresses, who have been open about how much the show moved them during filming. (Seriously, grab your tissues for this one!) Below, read on for everything you need to know about the cast of You and Everything Else.
Kim Go-eun as Ryu Eun-jang
(Image credit: Lim Hyo-sun/Netflix)
Ryu Eun-jang grew up poor with a single mother and often feels self-conscious about her financial means. Still, she has an extroverted and sociable personality. As Kim Go-eun described to press, “She’s honest with her emotions but carries a quiet shame about her circumstances.”
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Kim Go-eun, 34, is one of South Korea’s most acclaimed actresses. In 2012, she catapulted to fame by winning eight Best New Actress awards for her first-ever film role in A Muse. She has since had a successful career in Korean films and K-dramas, including starring alongside Gong Yoo in Guardian: The Great and Lonely God (a.k.a. Goblin) and leading the K-drama adaptation of the popular webtoon Yumi’s Cells. Last year, she won the Baeksang Arts Award for her performance in the highest-grossing Korean film of 2024, the occult horror Exhuma.
Park Ji-hyun as Cheon Sang-yeon
(Image credit: Lim Hyo Sun/Netflix)
The opposite of Eun-jang, Sang-yeon is the daughter of a wealthy family that didn’t express much love, so she’s more reserved with her feelings. According to Park Ji-hyun, Sang-yeon is “a person full of wounds and pain,” who begins to feel “as if everything she valued [is] slipping away because of Eun-jung.”
Park Ji-hyun, 30, rose to fame with her breakout role in the 2018 Korean horror movie Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum, which earned her a Rookie of the Year nomination at the Blue Dragon Film Awards. She’s also known for the dramas Your Honor, Rookie Historian Goo Hae-ryung, Do You Like Brahms?, Love All Play, Reborn Rich, and Flex X Cop. Before You and Everything Else, she worked with Kim Go-eun on Yumi’s Cells, where Park played Yumi’s season 1 romantic rival Seo Sae-i.
Kim Gun-woo as Kim Sang-hak
(Image credit: Lim Hyo Sun/Netflix)
When Eun-jung signs up for a photography club at her university, she meets the club’s secretary, Kim Sang-Hak. A sweet, sensitive boy, he reminds her of her first love, and the two form a connection. Later, when Sang-yeon also joins the club, their relationship becomes more complicated.
Kim Gun-woo, 33, made his debut with the 2017 slice-of-life drama Fight For My Way, and went on to appear in the shows Live, Less Than Evil, Catch the Ghost, and Record of Youth. You and Everything Else is his first role since his breakout turn as bully Son Myeong-o in the thriller K-drama The Glory.
Seo Jung-yeon as Yun Hyeon-suk
(Image credit: Lim Hyo Sun/Netflix)
Yun Hyeon-suk, Sang Yeon’s mother, introduced in the girls’s teenage years, is played by Seo Jung-yeon. The 49-year-old actress began her K-drama career in the early 2010s and has appeared in popular shows including Descendants of the Sun, Love in the Moonlight, Something in the Rain, One Spring Night, Do You Like Brahms?, Our Beloved Summer, Reborn Rich, My Demon, and Good Boy.
Kim Jae-won as Cheon Sang-hak
(Image credit: Lim Hyo Sun/Netflix)
Rising star Kim Jae-won, 24, plays Cheon Sang-hak, Sang-yeon’s older brother, who also befriended teenage Eun-jung. Since his acting debut in 2021, Kim has appeared in several popular dramas, including Our Blues, King the Land, Hierarchy, The Tale of Lady Ok, and Trauma Code: Heroes on Call. Next up, he’s set to join Kim Go-eun in the third season of the romance K-drama Yumi’s Cells.
Lee Sang-yoon as Kyung Seung-ju
(Image credit: Lim Hyo Sun/Netflix)
Kyung Seung-ju, who works with Eun-jang and Sang-yeon in their adult years, is played by Lee Sang-yoon. The 44-year-old stage and screen actor previously appeared in the dramas Life is Beautiful, Twenty Again, About Time, V.I.P., and Pandora: Beneath the Paradise. He was also an original cast member of the Korean variety show Masters in the House.
